


Proper Procedure

by sidana



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 11:32:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16218146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidana/pseuds/sidana
Summary: Agent Franklin decides some things are more important than his career





	Proper Procedure

Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my universe, no infringement intended. I promise to put them all back where I found them when I'm done playing with them.

Originally posted at Pomme de Sang

Proper Procedure

******************

Demetrius Franklin sighed as his partner carefully looked over the two bodies in the living room.

"So why did they send us all the way to Trenton for this? Looks pretty straightforward to me. Both women looked to be stabbed to death with an ordinary knife. There's no signs that we're dealing with anything that requires Special Research. Assuming that the husband took the two young kids, we're talking about kidnapping charges, which could have been handled by the local Bureau office in Philadelphia," he said as he tapped his fingertips against his thigh. There was always something too quiet about murder scenes, and something about the quiet that chilled him to the core. Most of the time, that simple rhythm was enough to break up the quiet, but for this one, it wasn't quite working right.

"It's not so much how they died, but who she was. The mother, Bethany Davidson, was one of the most prominent and visible witches in the state. We're here because there is a chance that the person who wanted her and her oldest daughter dead was another magic user or a magical creature." Fox said as he bent down to look at the wounds on the daughter.

"Never mind that by all accounts and two restraining orders, it seems like this one should be a simple domestic violence case gone horribly wrong. We don't need to be here, Fox."

"It's not our call to make. Bradford wants us here, and these days what he wants, he gets."

The implication was that Fox knew better than to cross the Bureau's current golden boy, and that if Franklin knew what was good for him, he's go along as well if he wanted any chance of salvaging his career. He was just about to snap back at Fox when he felt the hitchhiker in the dining room. It had noticed that he could feel it, and had locked onto him like a fucking guided missile. He carefully looked around the room, but none of the other cops or CSI techs seemed like they could feel it too. Lucky bastards. None of them were freaks like he was.

And it wanted something from him. As long as he kept the walls tight around his mind, he normally couldn't really tell that much about the hitchhikers, and he wanted to keep it that way. But this one was different somehow. Maybe it was because the woman had been a witch, and that made a difference. But he wasn't about to give it any part of him that he could attach to. He started to go through the list of songs he kept in his mind that seemed to help him block the hitchhikers out and settled on 'Walk This Way'. Nothing like the great old school tunes to confuse the spirit world. He took a deep breath and gave a shake of his head as he tried to refocus on the real world around him.

As he did that, he found himself looking at the pictures on the mantle. There was the elder daughter all dressed up for her final prom, a portrait of the family of five in happier days, and then a series of pictures of the kids in sports uniforms. When he got to the young boy in football gear, and the girl in a soccer shirt, the hitchhiker grabbed out for him again, doing its best to tear through what should be the comforting blocking sounds of Run D.M.C. He managed to keep it out, but just barely.

Then it let go of him just as suddenly it had grabbed for him. He looked at the pictures again, and it all clicked. The hitchhiker was worried about the two missing kids. Maybe it even knew where to find them. All he had to do was to let it inside of him. All he had to do was to let down his shields and just maybe something good could come out of the mess.

All he had to do was toss his career down the shitter in the process. They wouldn't kick him out of the Bureau anymore, or at least as long as the new rules were still in place. But no one there would ever trust him again.

"Franklin, if you're not going to offer anything to the conversation or the scene, get out of here so there's room for someone who's willing to help," Fox said.

He took a deep breath and made his decision. Right now, his career was probably toast no matter what he did. And he had gone into the Bureau because he wanted to be one of the good guys. He still wanted to be one of the good guys. If he didn't try to help find those kids, he wasn't sure he could still call himself that.

"Fox, can I talk to you in private for a minute?"

Fox started to snap back at him, but there must have been something in his face that made the other agent close his mouth. Instead, he grabbed Franklin by the elbow and steered him into a small room that Davidson had apparently used as a library.

"You wanted to talk in private, so talk," Fox said sharply.

"I don't see dead people," he started.

"You don't see dead people, what the fuck, Franklin?"

"Let me finish here. It's not something that's easy for me to talk about. Heck, I've been in denial about it my whole life. As I was starting to say, I don't see dead people, but I can sometimes feel them, and sometimes they can feel me. Sometimes they can even talk through me."

"So what you're saying is that you're a medium?"

There it was, the word that he had run from since he was fourteen years old.

"I guess that's the word for it."

"And you never thought to say anything about this before?"

"What was I supposed to say? 'Hi, please shitcan me from the job I actually do love?' You know how much the Bureau trusts anyone who doesn't seem to be a one hundred percent normal human."

"So that fuss with Anita Blake makes sense then," Fox said softly as he put the pieces together. Fox was good enough that he really didn't miss much. "I saw how you acted around her, and because she's got something with the dead too, you were afraid she'd pick up on what you could do. So why the sudden confession about your talent now?"

"Because there's something there in the living room trying to get me to pass along a message to the living, and I'm seriously thinking of trying to let it happen." He could still back away from it all, and Fox would keep his secret. He understood what it was like to be different and part of the Bureau.

"If you're telling me this, you're probably planning on more than just thinking about it."

"I'm actually trying to think about it as little as possible because it scares the crap out of me when it happens. It's not like the movies where there's a nice little seance and a little old lady sipping tea while the table moves around. When I let the hitchhiker inside me, it totally takes me over until it's done with me. It's like I'm just gone until it's done, and I don't remember any of it. You try waking up ten miles away from where you started with no idea of how you got there." He was glad that the Bureau background check had never looked up his high school friends who had known about the hitchhikers and who had kept him safe during the rides they took until he had figured out how to shield himself and block them from taking over.

"Then think about getting this solved. While you were spacing out in the living room, a couple of the detectives were giving me the back story on the not so happy couple. Turns out the rumor mill says she was dumping him because he was starting to get into some serious black magic she didn't approve of."

"And black magic and keeping the little ones alive is probably a bad combination. Shit," he said as he pulled his service weapon out of its holster and offered it to Fox. "Take it. If I'm going to do this, I'm not going to let the hitchhiker have access to a gun. I need you to cuff me too. I'm not going to let the rider do something criminal and then leave me behind to mop up the mess."

"You're sure about this?" Fox asked, even though he had already tucked Franklin's weapon into his pants and was taking the handcuffs to put around his wrists.

"No, but if I don't, I'm not sure how I'll be able to sleep at night."

There were strange looks from the locals as Fox lead him back into the living room, but Franklin ignored the looks in favor of something he was trying to feel. The hitchhiker was still there, still close to the bodies on the floor. He took a deep breath and as he exhaled, he let the music stop and his shields went down. His hands finally went still behind him as the quiet fell, and he let it, let her, inside of him.

******************

When he came to, he was sitting on the grass with his hands still cuffed behind him. In front of him, a small cabin overlooked a lake where herons skimmed the surface. It would have been a peaceful place if it wasn't for the dozen police cars parked to the side of the cabin. Physically, he didn't feel too badly this time save for a raspy throat. The hitchhiker had probably talked for a while, but had otherwise gone easy on his body.

"Fox?" he asked. The man who had been leaning against one of the police cars bent over him.

"Are you back with us, Franklin?"

"I'm definitely me again."

"What's the worst hotel we've ever gotten stuck in?"

"That one in Youngstown. I started out bitching because they stuck me in a smoking room, but I ended up being glad in the end because the ashtray was heavy enough that I used it to kill the rat."

"She wouldn't have known about that one," Fox said as he unlocked the cuffs from Franklin's wrists. "So how are you feeling?"

"Thirsty, but not too bad."

"Let me get you a drink then," Fox said, walking to fuss with something in the car trunk and returning with a bottle of water.

"So what happened to me?"

"You really don't remember?"

"Told you I never do, and you're usually a good enough listener to pick up on that."

"The hitchhiker, as you called her, was Bethany Davidson. She knew about the cabin, and thought that he might take the kids here. She was right. And when we found them, their hair had been cut, and they had kohl patterns painted on their bodies."

"So he was going to use his own children in some sort of ritual?" Franklin said, slowly putting together the picture.

"That's what it's looking like, and what a couple of the witnesses seemed to indicate before they clammed up and started asking for a lawyer."

"Shit," he said as he took a long pull from the water bottle. "But the kids are okay now?"

"They will be because of what you did. And Bethany said to give you her thanks for allowing her to talk to us."

"There was a chance they were still alive, so I had to. I suppose I made quite a scene while she was in charge?"

"Pretty much so."

"So I'm out of the magical closet here. Guess I'm never going to get out of Special Research now."

"Maybe you could go after Brad Brad's job now. You've got special skills he doesn't have and all."

"Nah. But I'll never be able to match his remarkable ability to kiss all the right ass. I don't want to play all the politics and games. I just want to work the cases."

He just wanted to be able to make things right a little bit in a world that otherwise seemed to be horribly wrong. And at least for one afternoon, he had managed to do that.


End file.
